All work

Inkline

A concept precision platformer for phones and desktop. A soft ink blob runs, slides, and wall-jumps through short levels, with an instant respawn after every miss.

ConceptFictional project. No real client, and nothing here is a measured result.

Sector
Platform games
Service
Mobile game development
Year
2026
Concept design: Inkline

In this concept

  • iOS, Android, and desktop
  • Precision platformer
  • Touch controls
  • Procedural animation

Inkline is a concept project. There is no real client and no released game behind it. We made it to show how we would approach a small precision platformer, from the first idea to a build people can play. Everything below describes design goals, not measured results.

The idea

One ink blob, a sheet of paper, and a teal node at the end of each level. Reach the node and the level is done. Each level takes seconds, not minutes, and the whole game is about moving well: carrying speed, reading a wall, and kicking off it at the right moment.

The blob is the same plain drop of ink in every level, with two dot eyes and no limbs. With no costume or effects to read, its shape tells you everything: tall and thin is a take-off, wide and flat is a landing, pressed flat against a wall is a slide, and its eyes look where it is heading.

The core loop

  • Try. A level fits on one screen and starts the moment you touch it. There is no intro, no countdown, and nothing to collect.
  • Fail fast. A miss sends you back to the start in under a third of a second. Your last few tries stay on the page as faint dotted lines, so you can see where each one went wrong.
  • Flow. After a few tries the level stops being a puzzle and becomes one smooth line. A best time per level gives a reason to come back and draw it cleaner.

Levels that teach one idea each

Levels come in sheets of twenty, and each sheet is built around one idea:

  • Run. Speed, jumps, and landing. Holding a direction longer carries more speed into the next jump.
  • Walls. Sliding down a wall slows you, and a kick sends you up and away from it. Narrow chimneys turn this into a climb.
  • Wet ink. Freshly inked floors have no grip. Speed you bring onto them stays with you, for better or worse.
  • Scribbles. Tangled patches of ink end a try on touch. They are the only hazard, so every level reads at a glance.

Each sheet opens with a level where the new idea is the only thing on the page, then mixes it with the ones before. No text tutorials: the level layout is the lesson.

Touch controls tuned for precision

A precision platformer lives or dies on its controls, and glass has no buttons to feel for:

  • Three controls. Left and right under the left thumb, jump under the right. Large touch areas, not small icons, and the left thumb can slide between directions without lifting.
  • Forgiveness that stays fair. A few frames of coyote time after leaving a ledge or a wall, and a short jump buffer before landing, so a jump pressed a moment early or late still counts.
  • Jump height by hold. A short tap is a hop and a held press is a full jump, so one button covers both.
  • Feel. A squash on landing, a stretch on take-off, a quick spin and a puff of ink on each wall kick, a splat of droplets on a miss, and a light haptic tick, all kept short so they never hide the next move.
  • Access. Movable and resizable controls, a left-handed layout, a wider grace window, and an optional slower speed. Keyboard and gamepad on desktop.

The art approach

The blob is not drawn frame by frame. Its outline is a ring of points rebuilt every frame, and a few springs driven by the physics squash it, stretch it, lean it into a run, and let it wobble as it settles. Because the shape comes from the movement, a slide, a kick, and a landing always match what the blob is doing, and it never needs a new drawing for a new move.

Levels are drawn in the same ink: solid blocks with a pen outline, a light grey fill, and lots of empty paper. Colour is kept for meaning. A single teal accent marks the node at the end of each level, and nothing else competes with it.

What we would build

  • A 2D platformer for iOS, Android, and desktop from one project, with a fixed-step simulation at 60 steps a second so a jump lands the same on every device.
  • Movement with wall-slide, wall-jump, coyote time, jump buffering, and variable jump height, tuned on real phones.
  • Procedural squash-and-stretch animation for the ink blob, and a small level editor so levels can be drawn and tested in minutes.
  • Four sheets of twenty levels for the first release, best times per level, and saved progress.
  • Store listings, privacy labels, and test builds through TestFlight and Google Play internal testing.

Goals, not results

The goals we would design against: a new player clears the first level within half a minute, a miss is back in play before the player has time to feel annoyed, and every failure feels like the player’s timing, never the controls’.

Key screens

The run

Landscape, one level on the page. The level name and time sit small at the top, the controls at the bottom corners, and nothing covers the space the blob moves through.

Level select

One sheet at a time, its idea named in a single word. Each level shows a small drawing of its layout and the best time, and the next level to play is marked.

Level clear

The time, the clean line of the winning run drawn over the level, and one large button for the next level.

Play the prototype

The game development page has a small playable prototype. It tests the part a precision platformer depends on: how running, sliding, and wall-jumping feel under two thumbs on a glass screen.

To test movement first, the prototype uses simpler stand-ins for the full game’s ideas: spike rows, a laser on a visible timer, and a sliding block as hazards, and a switch that opens an exit gate instead of a single finishing node. Three levels, not twenty.